Realizations
by missilemuse
Summary: Part 1 of Series- REICHENBACH TO RETURN. For someone who was a genius, he was realizing too many things for the first time... Each part is a stand-alone. SPOILERS for 2.02 & 2.03...


**Part 1 of Series- REICHENBACH TO RETURN**

_**Disclaimer:** Sherlock and John belong to ACD's grey cells, and each other in that order... Although the B.B.C. version receives full credit for inspiring me to put a pen to paper._

_**Author's notes:**This is me, finally giving up and getting on the band-wagon; writing a post-Reichenbach Series. Sherlock made me cry and John wouldn't let me stop. This is the result. Each story complete is a stand-alone. This is the first story in the Series_  
><em>Dedicated to all the writers who will write a post-hiatus fic, as I need them, but can't bring myself to write one at the moment...Please review...<em>

Molly had never understood hate crimes; crimes of passion; vitriol attacks, jealous stabbings; the whole lot. And she had cut into a lot of victims of those, over the years. Most crimes were like that. When seeing something or hearing something, suddenly became too much for a person to handle, and violence was the only outlet.

Gentle, soft-spoken, cat-loving Molly Hooper had thought she would never figure it out. What could tip a normal, sane, educated person, over the edge like that?

Until now…

The words on the paper in front of her blurred, as a red film covered her vision. She hadn't even read the article halfway, before she found her hands balling into fists, and tears of rage stinging in her eyes. At that moment, she realised that she was quite capable of murder. She could go out this instant, hunt this Kitty Riley down, and cheerfully throw acid in her face.

She shivered at the realization.

She didn't bother reading any further. With great effort, she willed her shaking fists open, calmly picked up the paper and carefully tore it into halves, then one-fourths, and then one-eighths. Then, just as calmly, she lit one of the burners and watched the fragments burn to a crisp on the lab table-top.

Only then did she turn to face Sherlock Holmes, who had been sitting as still as a statue, on one of the lab stools, observing her.

Her voice was steady. "Satisfied? Now, what do you need?"

* * *

><p>He was lying on the cleared laboratory table-top, his eyes closed. He would have preferred to lie down on the floor, but the blood had to drain downwards into the bag.<p>

He could hear her moving about, arranging everything that she would need on the parallel table. She rolled a blood pressure cuff around his arm, and then stepped back presumably to retrieve the needle and the bag.

"Umm, this will sting a bit", she warned. First, she tightened the tourniquet on the other arm. Then he felt the spirit swab sweep the inside of his elbow. He automatically folded his hand into a fist, before she could tell him. He barely felt the sting of the wide-bore needle, as it pierced his skin. All he could feel were the soft, gentle fingers, as they carefully taped the needle to his elbow, and released the tourniquet.

He had no desire to open his eyes; to see the pity in hers.

He still didn't get her. She knew that her feelings for him would never be reciprocated, but she didn't care. Even now, he had seen the muted desire in her eyes as she had taken in his sprawled figure, in his rolled-up shirt-sleeves on her lab-table; the scene she must have pictured in a thousand fantasies. Yes, the desire was there, but overwhelming it, was a mixture of concern, love and devotion; that which he had always dismissed as an unworthy infatuation. He would not have recognized these nuances of expression, if he hadn't seen them on a daily basis, whenever John laid eyes on him.

His desire to understand something that was still beyond him, won over. So he focussed on a distant point on the ceiling as he spoke. "Why, Molly?"

"Hmm?" She hummed, one hand on his pulse, eyes fixed on the rapidly filling bag.

"Logically speaking, you should have believed the story. There's conclusive proof. Why don't you?" He hadn't even told her that Jim was Brooke. Her actions defied reason.

Surprisingly, she giggled. He frowned in response.

"I'm sorry", she said. "I just never thought, I would see the day when I would have to reassure Sherlock Holmes that he was a genius."

His frown deepened. "Don't be ridiculous. I know, what I am. One silly rag is not capable of warping my reality. But you?"

He had treated her much worse than Sally or Anderson; used her, like one of her lab instruments; as and when he had seen fit. He had told John that Moriarty was very clever to create a lie that's preferable to the truth, which everyone would want to believe. He did not know any person who would be more benefitted by the lie, than Molly. Yet, she had refused to even consider it.

"Yes, I'm stupid enough for it to happen to me right?" She sighed, "I trust you, Sherlock. That's enough for me. I know that isn't much coming from a person who had nearly trusted Jim, but that's just who I am; silly and human." She exhaled. "I don't really expect you to understand."

Once upon a time, he would have agreed with her assessment. But unbidden, he was struck by a memory; he thought he had deleted it, a long time ago.

_Oh, perhaps I should mention -I didn't kill her._

_I never said you did._

_Why not? Given that text and the fact I have her case it's a perfectly logical assumption._

_Do people usually assume you're the murderer?_

_Now and then, yes._

_Ok…_

He hadn't understood at that time, what the simple 'ok' had conveyed; the depth of trust it had implied. The trust that he was about to betray.

He understood very well what Molly meant. And that was his biggest punishment, his curse; that he knew exactly what he was leaving behind.

She wiped the sweat off his forehead with a concerned frown, and rechecked his blood pressure. "I think that's enough."

"No", he instructed. "A bit more than a pint." _An exact pint would be suspicious, right John?_

She allowed a minute more, before removing the needle, and putting a plaster on his elbow. "I'll be right back. Don't try to get up."She ordered, before leaving to hide the bag in a secure place.

His phone pinged with an incoming text alert. He got up, ignoring the woozy sensation he was feeling, and moved to get it from the pocket of his coat.

FROM: M

JOHN'S HERE, WAITING TO SEE ME.

Sherlock smiled proudly at the display. John had figured it out, just as they had known he would. The information in the article couldn't have come from anyone, but Mycroft. He had allowed his brother to give the information to Moriarty, in exchange for a 24 hours, no holds barred access to Baskerville. Neither he, nor Mycroft had realised the long term repercussions of that deal. They had both underestimated Jim. He quickly typed a reply.

FROM: SH

STALL HIM. NEED MORE TIME.

FROM: M

OK. EVERYTHING SET FOR OP. ACHILLES.

WAITING FOR YOUR GO-AHEAD.

HURRY UP, THE DOCTOR IS THIS CLOSE TO ACTUAL VIOLENCE.

Sherlock was still smiling, as he erased the messages.

"Was that John?" Molly was standing at the door to the lab, just watching him. At his puzzled expression, she blushed as she retracted her words. "Uh…forget it. It's none of my business."

He found that the dizziness hadn't dissipated, and he leaned heavily on the table, as he lowered himself on the stool. She hurried to his side. "Here, have this." She thrust a soft drink in his hand. "It was the only sweet drink in the vending machine."

"Why did you ask, if that was John?"

"You get this look on your face… Are you two… you know what, never mind."

Sherlock knew what she wanted to ask. He had been disgusted and furious, when Riley had cornered him in the Courthouse men's room with a similar question. But as he looked at Molly's reddened face, he knew that she had earned the right to ask that question.

"No, Molly. It's not like that. He's my flat-mate and my best friend, that's all."

"But you love him?" The tone of the question was rhetorical. "Are you sure, you want do this?"

He didn't want any of it. But when he had seen what Jim had done, he had realised what the next step would be. He had to die, to consolidate the fraud; die in disgrace. It will be made to look like a suicide. And because Jim loved a challenge, he would probably force Sherlock to kill himself, by holding John ransom.

It had been Mycroft's idea, to call it Operation Achilles. Fitting, he had said…

"I don't have a choice."

"He would disagree. He would say that it wasn't your choice to make."

It wasn't either of their choice. It was Jim's. He would make the next move. And he would make sure that they were as far away as possible from each other, on the chessboard. Sherlock would have no choice, but to play right into his hands. He knew everything. But it changed nothing. This was what helplessness felt like…

"When everything's alright again, will you come back?" She couldn't keep her voice from trembling.

He wishes he had the answer to that. His disgraceful and public 'suicide' was going to drag John through utter hell. Even if he were to successfully pull off his fake death, he was setting out to achieve the impossible; trying to bring Moriarty's organisation down, from the shadows. The odds are highly unlikely that he would survive, and a part of him doesn't wish to. If he did, it would take years to accomplish the task. If John has accepted his death and moved on by then, what right did he have to come back, and fling his world into chaos once more?

Molly's face had paled at the pause and the look on his face. "Would…would you want to?"

He doesn't have to think before answering this time. "Oh God, yes."

THE END…

PART 2 is up!


End file.
